The next morning Lil woke late.
‘Lil!’ Her mum shouted her name up the stairs. ‘LIL!’
‘Coming!’ Lil yelled back. Stopping at the airing cupboard to get some fresh clothes, she opened the door. Her jeans were in a pile on the floor.
She frowned. No, not her jeans: these had scuffed old trainers at the end of them. These jeans had legs inside them. Black eyes stared up at her out of a ghostly white face. She screamed. Crouching beneath the bottom shelf and the hot water tank was Nedly.
Panic darted across Nedly’s face. ‘Sorry, I –’ His voice was drowned out by the sound of footsteps pounding the stairs as Lil’s mum hurtled onto the landing.
Lil turned to face her, slamming the door in Nedly’s face.
Lil’s mum, Naomi, was slight and bespectacled with the same large cup-handle ears as Lil. She gave Lil an exasperated look. ‘I’ve been calling you for ages! Are you OK?’ Lil nodded dumbly. ‘Good. Breakfast is nearly ready – scrambled eggs on toast! Come on.’
As soon as the coast was clear Lil reopened the door. The airing cupboard looked empty. Cautiously prising apart towels and bundles of clothes she peered round the back of the hot-water tank. ‘Nedly?’ she whispered. ‘Are you there?’ Wooden planks lined the back wall. She pushed at one of them and it gave a little beneath her fingers.
An icy whisper ghosted the back of her neck, sending a wave of goose pimples up her spine. Lil pulled up sharp and then slowly turned round.
Nedly was standing behind her, at the top of the stairs, hands in pockets, looking miserable. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you.’
Lil’s pulse was racing but she bit back on the jitters and gave him a reproving snort. ‘You could give someone a heart attack with a stunt like that.’
‘LIL!’ Her mum shouted up the stairs again.
‘COMING!’ Lil yelled back and then lowered her voice again. ‘That was some trick, Nedly.’ She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘How did you get out of there so quickly? And what were you doing in the airing cupboard in the first place. Have you been in there all night? How did you even fit?’
‘Actually, it’s bigger than it looks,’ Nedly began. ‘You see, there’s this …’
Lil wasn’t listening. She threw a jumper over her pyjama top and with a quick ‘follow me’ set off down the landing. ‘You know, you could have just said you didn’t have anywhere else to go. You didn’t have to go hide in a cupboard.’
Nedly attempted to interrupt from several paces behind as they hurried down the hall. ‘I wasn’t hiding; I was …’
‘Ready?’ Lil said.
‘No … I – What for?’
‘If you’re going to stay here, I need to introduce you to my mum so we can find you somewhere better than the airing cupboard.’
Nedly skidded to a halt. ‘What, now?’ His face dropped. ‘What if she can’t … I mean, some people …’ He faltered. ‘What if she doesn’t –’
‘Like you? Why wouldn’t she? I won’t tell her about you breaking in and all that stuff, don’t worry.’ She held out her hand. As he reached to take it Lil felt an icy breeze play over her fingers. It was a strange sensation, like opening a freezer door. Without thinking she pulled away. ‘Come on.’
As they crept down the hall Lil heard Waldo going hell for leather around on his wheel. They opened the kitchen door and the sound was dwarfed by the shrill cry of the kettle, which was boiling itself dry on the stove top. Naomi Potkin stood staring distractedly into the refrigerator.
Lil turned off the hob and the noise died away. ‘Kettle’s boiled. Hungry?’ she asked Nedly, picking up a couple of satsumas from a bowl on the side and offering him one.
He shook his head at it fearfully. ‘I’m OK.’
‘Starving,’ said her mum, taking the satsuma from Lil and stuffing it in her pocket then swigging back a mouthful of tea.
‘Mum,’ said Lil. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet.’
‘OK then.’ Naomi pulled an egg box and a pat of butter out of the fridge and shivered. She closed the door and walked straight past Nedly to unhook a frying pan from the rack on the wall.
Lil gave him an apologetic shrug. ‘His name is Nedly.’
‘Great,’ said Naomi, ignoring him. ‘About last night …’
‘Yeah,’ said Lil, remembering suddenly why she had been at the bus station in the first place. ‘I waited for you outside the cinema.’
‘I had to work late …’ Naomi started to explain.
‘For almost an hour,’ Lil continued.
‘I’m sorry.’ Naomi reached out a hand to tuck Lil’s hair behind her ear but Lil stepped out of reach. ‘You know, you’ve got so good at looking after yourself that sometimes I forget you still need looking after.’
‘I don’t need looking after,’ Lil snorted. ‘It’s just that if someone says they are going to do something they should do it.’
‘You’re right. I am sorry.’ Naomi pulled her daughter in for a hug and the scent of burnt matches hit Lil again.
‘What is that smell?’ she said, burying her nose in her mother’s lapels.
‘Oh, that.’ Naomi quickly peeled off the jacket, balled it up and took a deep, analytical sniff. ‘It’s nothing.’ She stuffed it in the washing machine.
‘It doesn’t smell like nothing,’ Lil persevered.
‘It’s just a bit of burning fleece,’ her mum admitted, turning back to the stove. She cracked the eggs into the pan and gave them a frantic stir.
‘From …?’ Lil dropped two slices of bread into the toaster.
‘There was an incident at work last night: a fire in the Mayor’s Office. His sheepskin coat was the only thing I could find to damp the flames.’
Lil frowned. ‘What were you doing in the Mayor’s Office – I thought no one except the mayor and his bodyguard were allowed in there?’
Naomi paused mid-stir. ‘I just had to pick up some routine files and things. It wasn’t anything really, only a very little fire, and anyway the mayor was out cold the whole time. He probably wouldn’t have even have known I was there.’
‘So, how did it start?’ Lil narrowed her eyes into the Penetrating Squint.
‘Beats me.’ Naomi seemed like she was immune to the Squint; all her attention seemed to be focused on scraping the burnt bits of egg off the bottom of the pan.
‘But didn’t anyone think it was strange that it was you who put the fire out? What about the bodyguard?’
‘Look, no one was there to think anything and I didn’t stick around,’ Naomi said quickly. ‘I had work to get on with so that was that.’ She put down the spoon and took hold of Lil’s chin firmly between her finger and thumb, tilting her head so they were eye to eye. ‘It wasn’t a big deal so just forget about it, OK?’
‘Fine.’ Lil shrugged and Naomi kissed her on the forehead. ‘Anyway –’ she looked from her mum to Nedly and then back again – ‘aren’t you going to say hello?’
Naomi pulled a slice of warm bread from the toaster and took a bite out of it. ‘Look, love, I can’t stay. I have to go back into work to help clear up the mess; there are papers and things that need to be sorted.’ She took a pot down from a high shelf and pulled out a five-pound note. ‘After breakfast why don’t you get the bus into town? Go to the cinema or something.’
‘Now? What about Nedly?’
‘I’ll meet him later.’
Nedly stood in the middle of the kitchen, his cheeks darkening as awkwardness turned into mortification. Lil was confused. ‘But you’re meeting him now.’
‘Sorry, love, no time!’ Naomi raced out of the kitchen, grabbing her rain mac off the hook in the hallway as she passed it.
‘But it’s Saturday …!’ Lil yelled after her. The toast suddenly pinged as the front door slammed. Moments later they heard an exhaust splutter followed by a rubber squeal as the Datsun pulled away at speed.
Lil was dumbfounded. ‘Sorry, Nedly. She’s not normally that bad.’
Nedly looked relieved. ‘It’s OK.’
‘It’s not OK.’ Bottles and jars rattled as she yanked open the fridge door and let it exhale icily in her face. ‘She looked right through you –’ Lil stared angrily into the dazzling white interior of the ice box – ‘as if you weren’t really there. Just like that idiot in the bus station. I don’t know what’s wrong with people in this town.’ She turned slowly to face Nedly. His shoulders were curled inwards; his head hung down. The fridge light buzzed and went out.
‘But I can see you – you’re as real as me, right?’ She poked out a finger to prod him in the chest but he took a step away. Lil frowned to herself as she laid the toast on a plate and spooned the eggs on top. ‘Ketchup?’
He gazed hungrily at it. ‘There’s not enough for two. You have it.’
‘We can share. Looks delicious, right?’ Lil picked up a couple of forks and slid one across the table towards him. ‘De-licious!’ Nedly nodded and sat on his hands as though he was trying to stop them from doing something stupid. ‘Come on,’ said Lil. ‘Tuck in.’
‘No, thanks,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Go on.’ She pushed the plate towards him.
‘I’ll eat it later.’ His leg started twisting restlessly.
‘It will be cold by then.’
‘Maybe I like it cold.’
‘No one likes it cold.’ Lil was beginning to get impatient. ‘Just take it.’ She held out the fork but Nedly backed away from the glinting prongs. He wasn’t sweating, but he looked like he should have been. He pursed his lips and put his hands as far into his pockets as they would go. Lil put the cutlery back down on the table.
‘You can’t take it, can you?’
‘Of course I can.’
‘What’s the matter with you?’ she whispered.
‘Nothing!’ Nedly replied, a little too loudly. He turned to leave but finding the door closed he just walked up to it and stood there.
‘Don’t you want any breakfast then?’
He shook his head sadly.
‘Not even a satsuma? Come on. I’ve got one each. Catch!’ Lil threw it at Nedly.
He turned as it left her fingertips and reached out a hand to deflect it but missed. He shouted, ‘No!’ as the orange hit his stomach, disappeared through it, bounced on the lino, and rolled under the sideboard.
It took Lil’s brain half a minute to take in what her eyes had just seen. As the second hand of the kitchen clock hammered its way through 180 degrees, she stared at Nedly with unblinking eyes; her jaw dropped a fraction of an inch and she held her last breath inside until she could swallow it. When she finally exhaled, her lips were still trembling.
Nedly was panic-stricken. He spluttered: ‘That orange is going to go mouldy under there.’
‘I know it will,’ said Lil. ‘But that’s not the point. The point is you couldn’t catch it, could you?’
‘I could have if it hadn’t been such a rubbish throw,’ he said lamely.
Lil fired a raised eyebrow at him. ‘Really? So why don’t you fetch it out from under there for me and I’ll throw it again?’
He narrowed his eyes at her. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘Nedly, the satsuma went right through you. It went through your belly and out the other side. You don’t think there’s anything weird about that?’
Nedly looked as though he was trying to think of an explanation.
‘Don’t try to think of an explanation. We both know why you couldn’t catch it and it’s time to face up to reality.’
‘You must have thrown it pretty hard.’
‘No I didn’t. The satsuma went through you because you’re not really there. So you must be a –’ Lil could hardly believe what she was about to say. ‘You’re a ghost, Nedly.’
A look of abject horror struck Nedly. He gasped at her and then ran through the kitchen wall with a pop and vanished.
Lil shot out of the back door just in time to see him disappear through the garden wall; by the time she got to the alley beyond the back yard he was nowhere to be seen.
‘Nedly? I’m sorry!’ she called out. ‘Are you there?’ There was a cold patch to her left near to some bins. Lil turned to it. ‘Nedly?’
She shivered as a curl of mist formed in the cold spot and coalesced into the outline of a boy, pale and wide-eyed. He sniffed miserably. ‘That was a rubbish throw.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lil. ‘You could have just told me.’
‘Told you what?’
‘Did you think I wouldn’t notice?’ Lil reached out to touch him but he flinched away; the tips of her finger just brushed his shoulder and sank through it. He felt light and cold like falling snow.
Nedly gave her a look of pure outrage and yelled: ‘I am not a ghost – you can see me, you’re talking to me. That means I’m real. That proves it!’
‘But no one else can see you. Just me. Mum wasn’t ignoring you. Neither was that man in the bus station. They couldn’t see you.’ She looked him square in the eyes. ‘You’re a ghost, Nedly. Admit it.’
‘I am not. You are …’ He scowled at her and small grey patches appeared on his cheeks.
‘That’s the worst come-back in the books.’
‘No it isn’t.’
Lil folded her arms. ‘You’re right, that was. You’re not really a Missing Persons case are you, Nedly?’
He shook his head sadly.
‘If you’re a ghost that means you’re already d …’ She faltered when she saw the stricken look on Nedly’s face. ‘It means you’re de …’
The bin lids in the alley began to hum, and then rattle. Lil felt the vibrations of the approaching train thrumming in the concrete beneath her feet. She struggled to shout over the freight train. ‘Look, Nedly, let’s face it, it means that you’re DEAD!’ The last word rang out in the low chug and shunt that followed the train.
Nedly flickered like a hologram; Lil could see the bricks of the alley wall appear through his sweatshirt. When he spoke his voice came out like a whisper so faint that it could have been the whistle of the wind. ‘But I don’t want to be dead.’
Lil felt a tear prick the back of her eye. She looked away, sniffed it back and cleared her throat.
‘I know, Nedly. No one does but there it is. That’s, you know, life. Now, I don’t know much about ghosts – other than what I’ve read – but you’re still walking the earth so for my money that means you’re not currently at peace. It may be that you’ve come to a sticky end – had you thought of that?’
Nedly shrugged.
‘In my book, an unquiet spirit means only one thing.’ Lil fixed him with a steely glare. ‘Murder.’
The word ‘murder’ hung in the air between them like a corpse from a gibbet.
Lil pushed it to one side. ‘Come on, we’ve got work to do.’
Nedly peered at her from behind a lock of hair. ‘Aren’t you scared?’
Lil pulled the remaining satsuma out of her pocket and peeled it thoughtfully. ‘Probably not as much as I should be.’